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LOS ANGELES 
Dweezil Zappa is not prone to crying in public, but he got all choked up when his band, Zappa Plays Zappa, won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance this month at the Staples Center.

“Did you feel it? The Earth actually fell off its axis!” Zappa quipped, before quickly growing more serious. “Thanks. Obviously, this means a lot.”

The dark-haired guitarist stopped for a moment, in a futile effort to maintain his composure during the pre-telecast portion of the music industry's most prestigious annual awards show. He then started to softly weep tears of joy.

“I'm trying to keep it together,” said Zappa, flanked by his fellow Zappa Plays Zappa members.

His band's victory came for its soaring rendition of “Peaches En Regalia,” a genre-leaping song from “Hot Rats,” the landmark 1970 solo album by his legendary musician father, Frank Zappa. The elder Zappa, who died of prostate cancer in 1993 at the age of 52, wrote “Peaches” in 1969, the same year Dweezil was born.

“This song means a lot,” Dweezil said, clutching his Grammy. “It's 40 yearsold and was dedicated to me when I was born by my dad. So, I'm dedicating it right back to him.”

In fact, Zappa Plays Zappa – which performs a San Diego concert Sunday at downtown's House of Blues – is itself dedicated to honoring the artistic legacy of his father. Formed by Dweezil Zappa in 2006, the one-woman, seven-man band also was designed to introduce a new generation of listeners to the music of Frank Zappa.

One of the most talented, prolific and eclectic composers and bandleaders of the last century, Zappa created a musical universe unlike any other. Rock, blues, jazz, contemporary classical, doo-wop, funk, avant garde, tangos, waltzes and more, he drew from any style that struck his fancy.

The Baltimore-born maverick recorded a staggering 80-plus albums between 1966 and 1992. He began composing orchestral music when he was a student in San Diego – first as a freshman at Grossmont High School, then as a sophomore at Mission Bay High School.

Lyrically, Zappa's songs could be silly or surreal, bitingly satirical or unabashedly scatological. Witness such classics as “Montana,” “The Illinois Enema Bandit,” “Who Are the Brain Police?” and “Valley Girl” (which, in 1982, gave Zappa the only Top 40 hit of his career).

By turns earthy or intricate, hard-rocking or bluesy, jazzy or orchestral, his music was a dizzying marvel of styles and approaches that always sounded unmistakably “Zappa-esque.”

Performing such demanding pieces required first-class instrumentalists. That is why, much like jazz icons Miles Davis and Art Blakey, Zappa was also acclaimed for nurturing dozens of talented young musicians. Among the top players in his various bands were singer-guitarist Lowell George, violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, keyboardist George Duke, drummers Terry Bozzio and Chad Wackerman, and guitarists Steve Vai and Mike Keneally.